January 8, 2025
The Laken Riley Act is now moving on to the United States Senate for a potential vote – perhaps as soon as this week and could ultimately become law.
That’s because yesterday – the bill that deals with deporting certain undocumented migrants passed the house with a bipartisan majority.
The final vote was 264 to 159.
216 Republicans voted yes.
48 Democrats joined Republicans and also voted yes.
159 Democrats voted no and 11 members were not present and did not vote.
This bill is obviously named after Laken Riley the 22-year-old nursing student who was killed last year in Georgia by a migrant who had crossed into the United States illegally and even though he was arrested and charged in the United States with shoplifting was not detained.
The bill is short and basically would require federal authorities to detain and hold undocumented migrants for possible deportation if they are arrested and charged with burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting. Right now – under the current law – non-citizens who have been convicted of felonies are subject to deportation – but this law would knock that down to just a charge on a lesser offense and not a conviction. The Democrats who voted against the bill argued that the law is overly broad and is unconstitutional because it would in essence allow local and state officials to dictate immigration policy which is in the jurisdiction of the federal government. Not the state government.
So will the Laken Riley Act have a chance of actually becoming the law? Yeah. It does. And that’s because not only did it pass the House yesterday – it does have Democratic support in the Senate. As you know – laws like this would require 60 votes to overcome the filibuster in the senate. After the election 53 Republicans were elected to the Senate. But because newly elected West Virginia Republican Senator Jim Justice has decided to delay his swearing in so he can finish out his term as governor till next week — there are only 52 Republicans in the Senate right now. So if all of them voted yes – they would still need eight Democratic Senators to join them to get to 60.
Senator John Fetterman – a Democrat in Pennsylvania has signed on as a co-sponsor of the Laken Riley Act. Newly elected Senator Ruben Gallego a Democrat from Arizona has signal he will likely vote yes as will Senator Gary Peters a Democrat from Michigan and Senator Jon Ossoff a Democrat from Georgia. Other Democratic Senators Mark Kelly, Jacky Rosen, Tammy Duckworth, John Hickenlooper and Independent Senator Angus King have also indicated they support at least opening debate on the bill.
Regardless of when this vote happens – this amount of Democratic support already is a good indicator that this bill has a good chance of passing the Senate. So when will we know? Well – it’s possible that the new Senate majority leader John Thune could get this bill on the floor and start the debate process by Friday of this week.
Read more about the Laken Riley Act here.
See how your lawmaker voted in the House here.
